Jamaica Athletes on National Floorball Squad for 2014 World Championship Qualifiers

Orion McCaw and Oshain Daley will join the Jamaica Floorball Association’s( JFA) National Squad preparing for the upcoming 2014 International Floorball Federation’s (IFF) World Championship Qualifiers in Markham, Ontario, Canada January 30 to February 2, 2014. The JFA Squad will face off against the USA and the host Canada to battle for two (2) places at the Finals to be held in Sweden later in the year.
Both McCaw and Daley have their roots in the Special Olympics Jamaica’s (SOJ) Floor Hockey programme (a tradition of success) and have enjoyed several years of success at respective Special Olympics World Winter Games with the various squads that have participated.
In 2011 the JFA approached Special Olympics Jamaica inviting athletes to participate in its introductory workshop hosted at GC Foster College in St. Catherine. Since then our athletes have taken part in all of the JFA’s event and weekend training sessions.
Coming back from the 2013 World Games was the real starting point for our athletes and they have organized themselves into a small club of some fifteen (15) Special Olympics Floor Hockey players and eleven (11) non-athletes, which makes the team a “Unified Team” in the Special Olympics environment. We agreed on the Maroons as our team playing name as the roots are significant to Jamaica encompassing the fighting spirit, which the athletes have demonstrated on many occasions.
Even though it is still early days, there have already been some great successes for us with Orion and Oshain. Another opportunity is our invitation to send a delegation to the upcoming 2014 Special Olympics Europe/EurAsia Floorball Tournament in Austria (this tournament is a prelude to the 2017 World Winter Games) if we can find the funds to go. In addition to these possible international events, the Special Olympics Jamaica Maroons will take part in the ongoing JFA Club League.

About Me:

I've been with Special Olympics Jamaica for 17-years. I've coached the Floor Hockey to many successful campaigns at World Games. I am now helping to establish the SOJ Floorball programme in conjunction with the Jamaica Floorball Association (JFA)